Stories with soul: Three foundations collected over three million dinars

When at the end of 2019 , the program “Foundation of our region – Community is asking!” was launched. the imaginations of the representatives of the Trag Foundation, who organized it, were mostly focused on the informal groups that would apply and on the communities that, through working with them, they would come to know as their own.

As they say in Trag, the pandemic was not even in their sights, and it was difficult to understand its true scale even when, on the day of the competition’s closing, a state of emergency was declared.

Although they feared that the change in approach and the overall situation in the country and the world would affect the motivation of the selected groups from Pancevo, Stara Pazova and Niš to remain part of the program, this was not only not the case, but the crisis encouraged them even more to engage with the local foundation and devise new approaches to work.

These groups have so far collected 3,095,500 dinars and 3,300 euros from individuals and companies in their surroundings, which the Trag Foundation has duplicated, and these funds, through five open tenders, have been redirected to support 35 initiatives in these three communities.

“In addition, they gathered new volunteers around their ideas, found a way to bridge the physical distance and include the community in their plans and their implementation. They awakened people’s awareness that by joint action they can solve many issues and thus contribute to the creation of a world that is better for all of us”, Marija Mitrović , Director of Philanthropy and Partnerships of the Trag Foundation, tells the website Priče sa ššu , adding that in the next few months these groups will become registered local foundations and continue their independent work, growth and development.

Local foundations are formally registered only when they secure a minimum of 10,000 euros from companies and individuals in their community, which Trag duplicates, and which they return to the community through their donation programs. For the first year, year and a half, they work with mentoring and administrative help from the Trag Foundation, which continues to support them even when they enter the phase of independent work.

Through calls for support, the founding teams of local foundations in Niš, Pancevo and Stara Pazova have so far supported the most projects in the fields of education, culture and renovation of public spaces.

The local foundation of Niš supported the initiative of a group of citizens to paint a mural with the image of the famous Niš boxer Čelik on a building in the city center, in order to pay tribute to his sports and philanthropic successes, but also to enhance that space.

They also donated the revitalization of the community center in the village of Gornja Studena, as well as the opening of the Street Gallery in the center of Niš.

Read the heartfelt story about them here .

The local foundation Stara Pazova supported the project of music workshops for children and parents, which resulted in the creation of a joint orchestra that today performs at various locations in the city.

The project of robotics classes for school-age children in that city also received support, as well as workshops through which the children at Green Plantation Iva learned more about the production of organic food under controlled conditions and had the opportunity to connect and build new friendships with disabled people who work on this plantation.

We wrote about the team from Stara Pazova in the text found on the following link .

The local foundation Pancevo supported the united citizens of a settlement to arrange a common space between their buildings. The value of this action is that it started a chain of charity, and each subsequent action in the common space brought together even more tenants.

At the end, a charity event was organized through which those tenants collected funds for the further work of the local foundation.

Find out more about their activities in this story .

“All these initiatives have brought concrete improvement to the communities in which they were implemented, and the fact that many of them are being implemented even after the initial funds provided by local foundations have been spent, shows that they were much needed and that local foundations well recognized the needs and initiative holders who in this way were given the necessary initial capital for further work,” added Vjekoslav Vuković , coordinator of the Trag Foundation’s philanthropy program.

Marija and Vjekoslav point out that they were delighted by the level of commitment and the ability of the groups to connect and position themselves in their environment despite external challenges, then the great sense of solidarity and mutual support, the amount of ideas they put into practice and enormous persistence, but they were delighted, above all, by them as people, their integrity and uncompromising values ​​that live together with their communities.

The opening of the new competition is planned in the second half of 2022, with the desire that other communities in Serbia also try to establish a local foundation, as a link between people with ideas and initiative and people who have the means to implement those ideas.

The program in Bosnia and Herzegovina started one year after the first competition in Serbia. Initiative groups from 5 communities were selected there – from Sarajevo, Zenica and Bijeljina, and from the regions of Birač and Borja, which are currently in the initial stages of their fundraising and promotional activities.

“We expect the future participants of the program to come in a group of at least three, that the group members come from different sectors and that they are motivated to constantly listen and involve the community in their work, instead of imposing topics that they personally consider important.”

“The community should include a part of the city, a city or a wider area where at least 50,000 inhabitants live, so that the local foundation manages to provide enough resources for its functioning, but also the space to inspire and generate enough small initiatives to support”, said the interlocutors of Stories with Soul.

Trag Foundation will publish further information about its plans on its website and social networks, so that all interested citizens will be informed in time when they can start preparing for the competition application.